Rhea's Italian Adventure

Today I’m going to be writing about school. We take the bus there each morning at about 8:00 and come back about 4:00. Here is description of some of the things I do at school.

On Monday I went to library I got out an interesting book on the Galapagos. Lizy got Winnie-the-Pooh. The library computer system wasn’t working. We only get to check out two books. The books are pretty similar to the ones at the Nueva library but they are organized in a different way. You get a green sheet of paper and, if you see a book you like, you take the book and put the green sheet of paper where the book was. You take a look at the book and then if you like it, you can take the green sheet out and bring it to the librarian. If you don’t like it, you put the book back in the spot and take your green sheet of paper. It is a good system so that she doesn’t have to put so many books away.

On Monday we also have PE. This week they were poisoning the grapes, because they don’t want the bugs to eat them (just poisoning for the bugs and they probably wash it off). So we had to go up the Alamagna and play there. The Alamagna is where we have assembly. It is a big room. Mr. I set out a lot of hula hoops. You had three tries to get things in the hula hoop. The things were two Frisbees and one fox tail. A fox tail is a ball that has a cloth tail at the end. We had to try to throw them in the hoops. We were divided up into teams. If you got one of the things to stay in the middle of a hula hoop, it was worth five points for your team. If it landed touching the hula hoop but not inside, it was worth one point for your team. The score turned out to be 37 to 35. The other team… almost won, but Mr. I said the two front people in each line could throw once more. Emma, the person on the other team, threw and didn’t get any points for her team. That happens all the time. Then it was my turn. I threw the first Frisbee. I didn’t get it in. I threw the second Frisbee. I didn’t get it in. I rolled the fox tail. I got it in the middle of the hula hoop! It was the first point I scored, the first five points I scored. Our team won, 40 to 37. They went wild with cheering. Gabriella told me I could do it and I said yes, but I wasn’t expecting to get any points.

Every day we have lunch. I can’t decide whether to have hot lunch or not. The kids who get it don’t sit with the kids who bring their own lunch. I think I’m going to stick with cold lunch but I’m still not sure. We eat lunch in the lunch room. We can’t talk but we can whisper and the rule never gets followed. It’s true. My favorite day for lunch is Friday because Miss. O’fee is there and it is a very quiet lunch. I still whisper but it is not crazy.

On Monday we had some reading time. I read half of my book. It is called, “Me and my Newt.” Maybe it is expensive to get books from America. This book and the last one I read seem like they come from England. I like the book. It is silly because his newt is growing a lot. One day he was eight inches. The next day he was 15 inches. It is easy to read, but Miss. O’fee says this isn’t supposed to be hard reading.

We have two recesses a day. On Monday, I played with Brittany and Gabby. We swung on the swings but there were only two swings. So someone held up a hula hoop and tried to hang it on peoples feet. We would it get on our feet and swing back and forth with it, until we had had enough. Then we would toss it and the person who wasn’t swinging would get it. It was fun. Gabby is Gabriel. She is from Carmel, California. Brittany is from Japan. They both live in Florence now.

On Tuesday we had science for the first time. We planted a seed in cotton. We have no particular science teacher, it’s just Miss O’fee. We’re studying plants. We pour water for the seeds in the cotton. It gets sunlight from the sun in the window. I don’t know how it gets nutrients from the soil; but I know it grows.

We have Italian everyday. On Tuesday, we learned the names of all the letters. Other days we’ve learned – families, sports, food, adjectives. We’ve also learned how to ask questions like, how old are you – “Quanti anni e?” “ho otto anni”(I am eight years old). what is you name “come ti chiami” “Mi chiama Rhea” and things like that. I think Italian isn’t my best subject because it’s pretty hard to memorize the words.

Today we had computers. We have it once a week It wasn’t that fun because only we learned how to quit programs and save files. Let’s hope we do something more interesting later. I wanted to learn how to make stories and do cool things with it.

In art we made a watercolor from a bird’s eye view. We would share a plate with plastic food on it. My partner was Eos. We each made separate paintings. I’ve never painted from a bird’s eye view. It made me look at pictures different. I can draw from different angles. The first half of art we spending making the assigned thing. Half of the class goes with Miss Huson; and the other half go with Miss. O’fee. Miss O’fee doesn’t stay for the whole time. She just stays for the first part of the first half to tell people what they are doing. The second half of art is free choice art. It is not exactly free choice. If you were working on something in the last art class and didn’t finish it, you need to finish it before starting another project. In free choice art, I started sewing a bag. The cloth is purple felt. When I’m done sewing it, I’m going to sew on trim and pin on a flower. I think Art is going to be my favorite class, because our art teacher is so nice. Her name is Miss. Huson.

Today it rained. That doesn’t change anything except that we had indoor recess. At indoor recess, Emma and I made two bridges. One going from Gaby’s desk to one of the cubbies and one from Gaby’s desk to Gulio’s desk.

That’s my school, even though I wish I were at Nueva. This school is too strict and the work is not as fun. We are planning on going to Rome or the beach this weekend. So some of Italy is pretty fun.